How can our Property Investment Service help you?

Others say, ‘location, location, location’. We say, ‘location, purpose, price, capital growth, rental returns’… the list goes on. Knowing the market is critical. Local knowledge is key.

At Dream Homes London, our property investment service ensures all aspects of your purchase and investment are addressed. This is because finding, analysing, negotiating, and completing is what we do.

Why use our Property Investment Service?

Property investors often only seek professional advice when they get to the point of instructing a solicitor for conveyancing. But this can mean they find themselves too far down the road to make changes to the terms of their purchase if something isn’t quite right.

However, if you choose our Property Investment Service, you have someone on your side right from the start. Someone to advise on neighbourhoods, market prices, and property investment gotchas. Someone to help ensure you maximise your opportunities for capital growth and rental return. And someone with knowledge and experience and expertise to provide guidance on your long-term strategy.

Put simply, using our property investment service means we find, analyse, negotiate, and pursue your purchase through to a successful conclusion. This ensures you save time, money, and stress.

How does our Property Investment Service work?

During property investment we are able to help negotiate a great deal for your investment. As well as this we can help find your property, analyse the area and follow up on each aspect with the right people to get your investment completed.

Our property investment service follows this steps.

1. Discuss your Investment Requirements
   

The only way we can understand what you’re trying to achieve with your property investment is to discuss your plans in detail. We need to know why you’re looking to invest in property and what you’re hoping to achieve as a return.

We want to understand what your long-term plans are, how much you want to be involved with the management of the property once you own it, and what your exit strategy is.

1. Search For Potential Property investments
   

Our next task is then to search for the right property to meet your investment needs. With our local knowledge, experience, and contacts we can seek out properties that are not officially on the market as well as those that are.

As with all our property finding projects, no stone is left unturned. Once we’ve found a likely candidate, or some, we’ll arrange for you to view it as soon as you can.

1. Research on The Potential Property
   

After finding a suitable property for you we then double our efforts to research the background of both the vendor and the property thoroughly.

Our aim is always to put ourselves in the best position to negotiate on your behalf.

1. Negotiate, negotiate, negotiate
   

And this is where you’ll be truly glad you chose to use our property investment service.

We are the ones to have those awkward conversations and ask the necessary questions. It is our job to get the best price on the right terms for you.

1. Liaise
   

Once your offer is accepted, we will then continue to deal with every aspect of your property investment purchase.

We work with the surveyor, to talk to neighbours, liaise with planners, work with local tradesmen, confer with your solicitor, and iron out any other problems. Until finally we can…

1. Celebrate
   

Once your investment property is secured we leave you to celebrate and enjoy your new adventure.

If you’d like to speak to someone about our Property Investment Service,  We’d be delighted to discuss your requirements in more detail.

Dream Homes London

More than 104,000 households were in temporary accommodation at the end of March. The highest figure since records began in 1998 and 10% higher than the March 2022 figure. Competition for homes in the private rented sector continues to increase too, with figures from Rightmove showing there were an average of 20 enquiries per rental property in May 2023, up from an average of six in 2019.

With numbers like these few would dispute the need for more homes. Only this week the government has re-asserted its commitment to building one million new homes over the course of this parliament. Yet figures from the NHBC show new homes registrations last quarter were down 42% on a busy Q2 2022 and -7% lower than the Q2 average over the last decade.

In the run up to the general election the challenge for the current administration is to deliver more homes while not alienating voters in Tory strongholds. Building on the greenbelt being one of the areas where political parties seem most divided.

The debate over whether we should be utilising greenbelt land for development is one for another day, but government has made it clear that the focus should be on developing in urban areas or designated city fringe locations.

In a speech by Housing and Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove, it was announced that the conversion of shops, agricultural buildings, and disused warehouses will be made easier, with greater emphasis placed on redeveloping urban sites rather than building on the greenbelt.

Any plans to encourage development and streamline the planning process should be encouraged, however it is unlikely that these announcements alone will have a significant impact on overall delivery.

Analysis of government net additions data, the latest being for the 2021/2022 financial year, suggests less than 10% of the 232,820 net additional dwellings in England last year were delivered through change of use. Of the 10,300 homes converted through permitted development rights 81% were office to residential conversions with just 591 agricultural to residential and 271 formerly light industrial. Our DHL Living team discuss the challenges of office to residential conversion in a recent report.

Urban areas already appear to be pulling their weight. Only 25% of additional dwellings delivered across England last year were in areas classified as rural locations, suggesting urban areas are already delivering the bulk of new supply.

Urban locations see the bulk of housing delivery

The economy

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has updated its outlook for the UK economy. It expects modest growth of 0.4% in 2023 with a further 1.0% in 2024. But the 2023 figure represents a 0.7 percentage point revision from the 0.3 contraction forecast back in April. UK is expected to outperform Germany this year, the only G7 economy forecast to see output fall, but will lag other advanced economies, which collectively are expected to see the size of their economies increase by 1.5% this year.

Recently weather conditions in the UK have appeared increasingly out of sync with mainland Europe. But there are signs that UK inflation, until recently a clear outlier amongst our European and transatlantic neighbours, is starting to follow their lead.

More positive news on UK inflation will have come as welcome news to most. Particularly those staring down the barrel of rising debt costs.

Inflation figures for June coming in below expectation at 7.9% (predictions were for 8.2%) means the likelihood that bank base rates will have to rise significantly have started to recede. Further falls in inflation, as the impact of higher food and energy costs fall out of the figures, are also expected in the coming months.

Of course, inflation is not the only determining factor behind interest rates. We could still see rates rise, but odds on a 50 basis point rise to 5.5% have fallen. Forecasters, who only a few weeks back were forecasting rates topping out at more than 6.5% are now expecting a softer landing.

In a recent Reuters poll 70% of respondents were expecting the MPC to raise rates to 5.25% on 3 August. A view cemented following the Federal Reserve announcement of a further increase in rates in the US, raising it 25 basis point to hit a 22 year high this week.

The housing market

With the outlook for base rates improving could we have passed to peak for fixed rates? Possibly yes. A handful of lenders have already reduced their rates, with HSBC reducing their fixed rates by up to 0.45 percentage points. The latest figures from mortgage broker Lifetime Capital suggests competitive two-year fixed rates deals at sub 5.9% with five-year rates at 5.4%, based on a 75% LTV.

Land Registry figures suggest a slowing in the rate of growth in prices nationally. UK house prices rose 1.9% in the year to May 2023, down from -3.2% in April. Prices were -2.8% lower nationally than at their peak in September 2022, with London house prices -4.3% lower. Halifax figures for June puts prices down -2.6% annually, with Nationwide reporting -3.5% falls.

High demand for rental properties supports double digit growth

Annual change in achieved rents – year to June 2023

Rental properties on the market - Q2 23 compared with Q2 19

Rightmove are reporting average asking rents outside London are now 33% higher than they were pre-pandemic in 2019. With rates 28% higher in London. Stock levels are up marginally on 2022 at 7% but remains 42% down on 2019 norms. But it is rental demand where we have seen the highest increase in activity. The average number of enquiries for rented properties nationally having risen to 20%, from six pre-pandemic, with the North West seeing enquiries per property rise from seven in May 2019 to 30 in May this year.

High demand is driving rents higher. The Homelet Rental Index reporting average rents on new lets was up 10.4% annually in June. Scotland saw the highest annual increase, with rents on new lets up 15.8%. This reflects the two-tier market between new lets and existing tenancies which has emerged since temporary rent caps were introduced last year.

Despite strong growth in rents landlords still face a number of challenges, which we discussed in our last newsletter. One of which, decarbonisation and the target of EPC C appears to be delayed again. It is being reported that current proposals, which mean new tenancies will be required to have an EPC rating of C or higher by 2025 and all tenancies by 2028, will be delayed. Government citing cost challenges for landlords and the need to overhaul to EPC system.

Latest research from: 

Cheif Economist 

Dream Homes London

 0800 246 5844

https://www.dreamhomeslondon.co.uk